An eyewitness to history

MEATHMAN'S DIARY: Late Kilmessan centenarian's memory of Arthur Griffith lying in state

Tuesday of last week, 22nd June, was the anniversary of the beginning of the Irish Civil War.

It was on that date in 1922 that the Free State Army opened fire on an anti-Treaty IRA garrison who were barricaded into the Four Courts Building in Dublin.

While this is something that generations of us learned through our history books, there was another generation who lived through it, and I encountered one of these very interesting people in October 2010 when I went to visit Bective centenarian, the late Terry Finlay, of Tribley.

Even though she had Kilmessan roots (and informed me she was a first cousin of my great grandmother, Mary Plunkett of Ringlestown), she had grown up in Dublin, where her father, John Moran, was working with horses at Islandbridge. Her mother was Catherine Clarke from Bective.

Ireland was under British rule during Mrs Finlay’s early years, and it was a tense time, as the 1916 Rebellion took place, followed by the War of Independence and the Civil War.

“The Magazine Fort was in the Park, just behind our house,” Mrs Finlay recalled. “It was where the army kept its artillery. There was just a plantation between us and the fort and we were terrified around 1916 that it would be blown up some night.”

One of her brothers had found an empty cartridge around this time, and it was discovered on the property by British soldiers who were out on searches, leading to the house being raided.

Her brother, Jack, was among hundreds who on one occasion were rounded up and marched down Conyngham Road to the North Wall.

“I remember my father running after him and throwing him an overcoat, and he threw back keys. He was kept in Wakefield Prison in England for six weeks, surviving on bread and water. He was never the same after,” Mrs Finlay recalled in 2010.

She remembered that blowing up of the Four Courts, an explosion which wiped out a great deal of the country’s records .

“We saw that explosion,” Mrs Finlay recalled. “All you could see were papers going up in the air.

“It is said that one of the nights, Michael Collins sheltered across from us in an old barn at Islandbridge.”

And she remembers her mother bringing her to see Arthur Griffith lying-in-state following his death after a stroke, just 10 days before Collins was assassinated.

“There were rumours around at the time that Griffith had been poisoned.”

One night, there were lorry loads going by their house to Chapelizod. She was not sure if it was by British soldiers or the IRA, but their house light was on, and a roar came in to turn it off.

“We were afraid to go up to the shops in the city at the time, in case there’d be a bombing.”

It was a fantastic eyewitness account of history from a sprightly centenarian, who was to see a lot more in her lifetime.

(First published in Meath Chronicle print edition, Saturday 9th July).